See You Soon
by Sine Timore Metu
Summary: Henry has a strange encounter with a mysterious young woman.


When the bell above the door rang, Henry didn't look up immediately. He was lost in thought at the time, pondering the dilemma that was Adam. While he hadn't heard from his (supposed) fellow immortal in several days, Adam's presence was a dark shadow in his life, lingering just out of reach. Even when he was solving a case with Jo, or up to his nape in work, thoughts of Adam were constantly festering in the back of his mind, feeding upon his doubts and fears with the voracious appetitive of a starved animal.

Henry's sleep, already haunted by memories of the past, now bore new nightmares, always with an underlying atmosphere of malevolence. Paranoia had begun to creep from the confines of his dreams into his wakefulness, and it seemed no matter what he did, he couldn't rid himself of the feeling that he was being watched. That every move he made was carefully monitored by the specter known as Adam. The thought made him nauseous.

It wasn't until Abe's sudden, sharp tone broke Henry's concentration that he shook his troubled thoughts away, looking up. His eyes flickered over to where his son was, and his brow wrinkled in confusion. Abe was moving hurriedly through the store, hands out in front of him as he spoke angrily.

"Hey... Hey! The store's not open yet, read the sign!" Henry stood up quickly, taking a step forward, but stumbled, knees buckling beneath him. His legs had fallen asleep while he was distracted, and didn't appreciate the sudden movement in the least. Henry was narrowly able to grab onto the edge of an old, mahogany desk, using it to support his weight. After a moment in which he allowed his heart beat to slow, he gingerly took a small step. When he didn't collapse immediately, he skirted over to where the commotion was, eyes falling upon Abe's quandary.

A young women, in her late teens or early twenties perhaps, had taken up residence on one of the stores antique couches. She was tall, as tall as he was at least, with a black undershirt, and long, equally dark jeans. A leather jacket was hanging off her shoulders, but her arms were not actually in the apparel, leaving the article of clothing to cling to her muscular frame. Neither skinny nor stocky, she radiated the confidence of a person many years her elder. The only truly odd thing about her outfit was the set of dog tags hanging on a silver beaded chain around her throat. He immediately noticed that there was multiple pairs, including a modern day set, and the circular ones soldiers had worn back in World War I. He frowned, looking closer, and realized it wasn't pairs, but many, many individual tags, each different. If it had been the regular American tags, they could have been mistaken for some sort of fashion statement. But they were clearly from different places, different countries, and by the look of it, different time periods. Most of the identity disks he couldn't recognize, but there was several familiar ones. British, Canadian, Japanese, French, Russian, German. Many of them were old looking, and he wondered if she collected them. To each their own, he guessed.

The women seemed utterly unperturbed by Abe, one black boot resting along the couches spine, the other, bent at the knee, heel flat against the floor. She was lying down, one of the those ePhones clasped in her right hand, black nails tapping on a bedside table behind the arch of the sofa's back. It was only then that Henry noticed the dark stains upon her palms and fingers, and the somewhat awkward angle she held her body in. Nearly two centuries of medical practice kicked in, as he distractedly started searching for a possible wound. Abe, unaware of Henry's revelations, was growing more agitated by the second.

"Listen ma'am, I'm going to call the police if you don't leave. That door was locked, I checked it myself this morning, which effectively makes this a case of breaking and entering." The women didn't look up, too busy messing with her electronic device, but she did speak, tone flippant. Her voice was low, but clear, and bore a hard edge that seemed neither intended, nor prevented.

"Locked is not the word I would use. More like barely latched. A seven year old could've picked your door. Consider it motivation to buy a better security system." Both Henry and his son were stunned into silence for a handful of seconds by her blatant (not to mention extremely rude) announcement. Henry was the first to speak, his tone a confounding mixture of irritation and instinctual concern.

"Please, you are injured. I'm a doctor, let me help." Abe looked at his father, surprised, before quickly peering at the uninvited visitor with narrowed eyes, searching for signs of illness or distress.

The women raised her gaze for the first time, giving him a clear view of her face. Her hair, brunette, by the color of her eyebrows and lashes, was covered up completely by a black beanie, leaving a pale face with harsh lines. Her eyes were amber, or perhaps a pale hazel, and hard, but not flat. The surface of the woman's skin was imperfect with signs of acne around her forehead and chin, and several cuts above her brow. She wasn't beautiful like a gorgeous women, but in the way of a wolf or a tiger. Dangerous and unpredictable.

Henry felt the first stirrings of true fear when he saw the curve of her lips, dark purple against white cheeks. A thin line of crimson trickled from the corner of the women's mouth. That could mean she had just bitten her tongue, or it could indicate internal bleeding. He concluded the latter when she twisted slightly, revealing the thin handle of a stiletto dagger, protruding from her ribcage.

Based on the angle, and the amount of blood pooling in her lap, one of her intercostal arteries had been severed. She could easily bleed to death without proper medical treatment, and medical doctor or not, he didn't have enough supplies on site to treat a wound that serious. Looking around, he located the telephone, sitting only a few yards away, and he turned towards it. His heart skipped a beat at the sound of a gun being cocked, causing him to freeze, not moving for fear of being shot. While he wouldn't stay dead, Henry didn't want to leave Abraham alone with a potentially unstable women with a gun.

"Why don't we not do that, so I don't have to shoot you, and you don't have to ruin yet another outfit. Jesus Christ, how you afford it, I can not even fathom." The silence that followed was interrupted only by the sound of the women's labored breathing, and Henry used the moment to turn his body back towards the women, mind racing. _Who is this women, and how can she possibly know about my condition? Is she yet another immortal?_ He couldn't help notice that her knuckles were white, yet her hand was steady. The look in her eyes told him that she wouldn't hesitate to shoot. Abe finally broke in, startling Henry slightly.

"Who are you? Did that Adam fellow send you?" Henry shot his son a look, but Abe didn't notice. While he certainly wanted answers to all the questions bubbling up, Adam was a secret, and not one he wished to share with some stranger holding them at gunpoint. The women's laughter broke through his annoyance, a harsh bark, that, while not forced, held a bitter edge.

"That douche canoe doesn't even know I exist. Adam is a two thousand year old toddler with mommy issues. Thinks being immortal makes him better then everybody else. I swear, he never got over the Middle Ages. Must have been a hell of a renaissance man." Henry wrinkled his brow. _Douche canoe?_

When he looked up, alarm replaced confusion.

While distracted, the women's condition had begun to seriously decline. Her skin was light grey, and her eyes, so focused and commanding before, were beginning to flutter. Her gasping breath had faded to a weak wheeze, chest barely rising. He only had a moment of warning before her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped over. When her gun clattered to the floor, he leapt forward, fingers running along her neck. There was a faint sort of tapping, but even it was beginning to fade.

He flinched when a cold hand gripped his collar, and the women leaned forward, voice barely a whisper. "Sorry for ruining your couch." She released him, allowing her head to fall back. No pulse. Henry turned around to tell Abe to call an ambulance, but he had already hurried over to the telephone, hand grasping the phones midriff. When he turned back to the dying stranger, he made a strangled noise of shock and horror.

The women was gone. Nothing remained but a pool of crimson, slowly staining the couches pale skin, and a the thin, rectangular black ePhone she'd been using. Abe looked equally as stunned, muttering a word of apology into the speaker before setting it down.

The phones screen still glowed with its unnatural, artificial light, and realizing it was 'unlocked', he grabbed the device, wishing for once that he had learned how to use one of the damn things.

On it, there was a plethora of colorful squares in neat rows and columns, most meaningless to him. Several were vaguely familiar, or displayed pictographs that he recognized, but only one captured his attention. A white speech bubble on a plain green background differentiated from the other apps in one way; in the upper right corner was a red circle, with a white number one in the center. He hesitated a moment, before touching the icon. The screen changed. Now, on the far left side of the screen (separated by a black vertical line) was a rectangular box, with the name "Chase" typed in black. On the right, a green speech bubble was filled with black text. The words made him feel cold.

**See you soon Henry**


End file.
